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Invasion: Fall of Man
Developer   Programmer16
GenreShooter
PlatformWindows
Downloads460

About: Aliens are invading. You're there to stop them. 'Nuff said. [this is an early demo/test]

Game Info How To Play Downloads Comments



Please offer only constructive criticism. The intent of the GD Showcase is to help the developer create the best game they possibly can. Show them you support their efforts when posting.



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Good job on your game project, Programmer16!

Some improvement is in sight, but you've done more than I have :)

The biggest problem is that the character walks in the direction opposite of where you want him to go (W makes him go down, A makes him to right, etc). It also ran at 10-15 FPS, but that is probably due to the fact that I am on an unplugged laptop, so CPU speed is low.

Oh, and none of the aliens move or do anything. I guess they got so scared of the character that they "stopped themselves, nuff said". :) This could again be due to the low CPU speed, which if combined with some kind of time based AI processing would screw up the time-based calculations, if there are any.

Good job on integrating advanced stuff like shaders into your project. Could definitely do something interesting there, given time.

I also saw some nice GUI stuff (although, the Options dialog appears behind the Main Menu dialog and hotkeys like Esc/Enter/Tab have no effect). Also when you click Main Menu from the Pause Menu, Main Menu does not appear.

Also, in the beginning, your engine's glowing red logo fades in, and then starts blinking. I am assuming the blinking is due to the fact that the alpha value of the logo overruns and wraps back to zero, then the whole thing continues. Probably due to the fact that the timer (or whatever method you were using there for animation) did not get stopped.

I also saw that you have custom config file format (with curly braces!), which is also what I have in my engine. Good job on that, but if that's the only thing you use them for, seems like it could be an overkill. You are already using XML for your animations, might as well use it for settings files? Or else, there is always the good old ini format.

Looks like you also started with lua (probably for AI processing?), but didn't get too far yet. This could also explain the non-moving aliens.

Also, nice-looking HUD, and interesting ideas for movement/turning combination for player control.

Would be nice to look at your source code :)

Regards,
Val

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Thanks Val!

I forgot to mention that this is a demo (an early one. Actually, it's more of a test than a demo even; I just need to know if it was working on other people's systems.) The opposite direction movement is odd, as W moves up on mine and A moves left. The settings file may have become corrupted or something. You should be able to change that from the settings dialog on the main menu.

I probably compiled in debug mode which would cause a major FPS drain. Also my old rendering system was a little slow; it's since been changed.

The GUI has been fixed as well. Mainly the parts of it that were really draining the FPS (especially the key-mapping input controls) and controls not being ordered.

That's odd, as both the alpha value is capped and the timer stops correctly (it's supposed to fade in, stop for a few seconds, and then fade out.)

The config file system is being used for engine settings, game settings, and module information. Using XML for settings would actually be overkill IMO.

Lua is being used for all of my scripting needs; AI, events, etc. The test contains very little scripting, but I've got the most of it in now.

Thanks again; appreciate the feedback!

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I ran your project again on my higher-end machine (1.5GB Ram, 2.26Ghz CPU, Radeon 9000) and there was no problem with the logo fade in, or any slow downs.

But the character still, definitely, walks in the direction opposite to what is set in the Options. You should definitely take a look at that.

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Quote:
Original post by ValMan
I ran your project again on my higher-end machine (1.5GB Ram, 2.26Ghz CPU, Radeon 9000) and there was no problem with the logo fade in, or any slow downs.

But the character still, definitely, walks in the direction opposite to what is set in the Options. You should definitely take a look at that.


Thanks again ValMan!

I had written a little paragraph as to how this really isn't possible (unless you have a corrupted Windows install or DLL or something), but I decided to download the demo first. The movement is working perfectly, the problem is you're only using half the keys lol. This is an older version and I've since removed this feature. I had set it up so that you moved the character with the WASD keys and changed his facing via the arrow keys. So, you move according to the direction you're facing.

Anyway, I've removed that control scheme seeing as how it was really hard to control and not very intuitive. I'll be uploading a new demo/test soon.

Sorry and thanks for testing it again!

-edit-
Btw, I'm pretty sure I have the fading problem taken care of. We'll see I guess.

[Edited by - Programmer16 on June 8, 2007 3:16:15 PM]

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